


Abditory

by evodestiny



Series: Ari + Crow AU [1]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: And Fails Miserably, Character Tries Very Hard To Ignore Their Feelings, F/M, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, It's Four AM And I Have No Regrets, No established relationship, Pining, WHY is there no tag for Guardian Crow yet i am going to Scream, Yes I Am Developing A Whole OC AU Series So My Guardian Can Fall In Love With Crow What Of It, based on a prompt, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:29:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28046964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evodestiny/pseuds/evodestiny
Summary: Saw the prompt "Somebody write the Guardian quietly going back to the dam hideout to sit among Crow's old things & to process their developing feelings for him" and ran away with it. I'm not sorry
Relationships: Female Guardian/Guardian Crow
Series: Ari + Crow AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2115621
Comments: 3
Kudos: 36





	Abditory

**Author's Note:**

> so i. i really stayed up until four a.m. of the same day to write this fic, huh. that's a thing i did. this was originally gonna be just about the Young Wolf but someone on tumblr beat me to it so i decided to indulge myself.

**_\- Abditory -_**  
a place into which you can disappear, a hiding place

\---

Ari doesn't completely remember the trip to the hideout, or how she'd managed to talk her way out of explaining it to Neptune. She still feels a little bit drunk--Guardians don't have to worry about hangovers, thank the Light, but she still feels hazy and tired and a little bit like she's glowing.

Last night--in the middle of the forest, a campfire between them, she and Crow had gotten terribly, wonderfully, horribly drunk. Neptune had chastised her, Glint had warned Crow that it was a bad idea--and they hadn't cared; poisoning themselves just for the hell of it. Because they'd made a gun, because the Traveler was still being mysterious and confusing and unhelpful, because their world was ending and after everything they'd been through, they _deserved_ to have a little bit of fun.

And it had been. It had been the most fun she'd had in a long time.

Artemis doesn't know how to feel about that.

And now she's watching her feet carry her to Crow's hideout-- _it's his Crow's Nest,_ Glint had laughed--and before she knows it, she's there.

She doesn't knock on the wall. She doesn't stop to call out. She doesn't even think about what she's going to do if Crow is actually here. She hadn't talked to him at all, hasn't told him she was coming over, hasn't even considered what she might say to explain why she's there at all, and it occurs to her that maybe she should have listened to Neptune's warnings. But she doesn't stop long enough to give him the chance to ask again.

She follows the familiar path through the walls and crumbling catwalks, finds the opening torn in the crushed concrete, and it strikes her that she remembers the path here like she's walked it a million times. 

She stops in the entrance. It's dark in the room, and Crow and Glint aren't here. Dusklight spills in through the small gaps in the wall, washing the room in a soft golden glow, stone walls cutting the light into fractal shapes. Artemis hesitates--and then steps inside.

It's quiet, here. It seems like it's always quiet with him--how softly he speaks and how still he stands and how peaceful it had been last night.

She's still thinking about it, almost twenty-four hours later. They'd been laying in the grass, a nearly-empty bottle of wine between them, and Artemis had rolled over, to maybe make fun of his hair, or snatch the bottle before he could finish it, and--

\--and he had been right there. So close, she could see the reflections of the firelight and where they separated from the gold of his eyes; almost the same, but so wildly different.

She'd made a joke. Or maybe he had. He'd pulled away. Or maybe she did.

And it had barely lasted a moment--maybe less. But it had been enough. And now she's standing in his sanctuary, looking completely lost, surrounded by the pieces of his life. She sits down on the floor and isn't saying anything. _Neptune_ isn't saying anything--she's silent, quiet, almost calm but also looking like she's starting to tear at the seams just a little bit. Artemis curls her fingers against the ground, forcing herself not to touch anything, because these things _aren't hers,_ and she shouldn't even be here at all, but--

But she doesn't know where else to go. She doesn't know what to do.

She isn't--she is _not_ feeling what she thinks she's feeling. There is an explanation. There has to be.

She looks around at these things, this tiny room that holds scraps of a life that he wants to believe in. The empty bottle, a tiny piece of kindness that was his, even if only for a moment. The blue-white-gold bowl, a gift from Glint for his first Dawning. The white sheet--the damn white sheet. Proof that someone had cared enough to give him a proper burial. Proof that he meant something, even if it wasn't good, even if it wasn't real. The only comfort in a world that was hell-bent on punishing him for something that he, by all rights, didn't do.

Ari tries to rationalize it. That's not something she does--she's all action, she acts first and thinks later, she burns bridges when she gets to them and she takes control of her own life, no matter what the world is saying around her. But in this place, in _his_ place--

It's not fair. It's _not fair._ She _knows_ that.

And yet somehow, all she sees is gold. The fire that lit up all of his smile, the exact shade of his eyes as he throws all caution to the wind, the fading light that falls across her shoulders where she sits now. She thinks of how his hood had been thrown back when he stood and swung the bottle around like a sword, how he'd laughed like nothing around them was wrong, like the world wasn't on it's way down and her secrets weren't straining to tear out. How she had laughed _with_ him, how it was so _easy_ to smile with him and throw an arm around his shoulders and talk like she had never known him anywhere else. Like they hadn't both been torn down by time and loss and false belief.

She feels too warm for this late in the evening. Like she's standing in the sunlight and not the fading dusk. She curls her knees up into her chest and focuses on the cold air.

It doesn't have to mean anything. Her rage at the Spider's betrayal, at his cruelty, is out of compassion for Crow and Glint and it doesn't have to be anything else. It _isn't,_ she tries to tell herself; there's no small part of her that feels these things--that misses him when he's not around, eagerly awaits his messages, looks forward to heading to the Reef because he's there. It doesn't have to be because of him that she can head to the Shore without hearing gunshots in her head anymore, or that it feels a little less like walking into a trap and a little bit more like going home.

It doesn't have to mean anything. Doesn't mean she has to do anything about it if it does.

Is it even _allowed_ to be anything? Forget the Spider, forget the Vanguard--with all the history between them, how can she even entertain the thought? How can she bring herself to even _begin_ to feel what she might be feeling? How could she ever look him in the eyes and not feel like she was betraying him with every breath that wasn't a confession?

 _But he's not Uldren,_ a voice whispers in the back of her mind, treacherously, dangerously. _He is a new man. He is soft and good and kind and he is your friend.  
_

So why should she put that all at risk?

Firelight, again, and her chest is burning. 

Artemis will not admit to fear, and she'll die before she lets herself be transparent with her feelings--but she is not a fool. She doesn't deal with her emotions, doesn't _let_ herself deal with them, because she isn't _good_ at it. She is Artemis Evo, legendary Hunter, unparalleled archer, god-killing Hero of the Red War, savior of the universe over and over and over again--but she finds herself terrified of this. Of all these things in her head and what kind of tragedy they spell for the both of them.

But the truth is _here,_ in the trinkets and tellings of the things around her, in the man she has come to know, who has eclipsed any of the forsaken prince she expected to find.

And here, in this tiny room, a million miles away from the rest of the world, surrounded by the pieces of a life neither of them want to hold onto and can't bear to let go of--Artemis wraps her arms around herself, closes her eyes, and with no one but the blooming lavender sky as her witness, she breathes her confession.

_"I think I'm falling in love with Crow."_

**Author's Note:**

> feel free to come bother me on [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/eosofspades)! i also do art. (here's hoping that link works lmao)


End file.
